Nonetheless, you've been a good passionate voice for nurses in Canada and health care in Canada overall.
Since Mr. McCallum usually leads off, he goes into a long preamble--I'm not going to go into a long preamble--but I do want to indicate my belief in the same philosophy that you espoused that tax cuts are not always the answer. In fact tax cuts that don't invest in productivity and particularly, I would argue, tax cuts that disproportionately assist those least in need are not the answer. If we're going to maintain a publicly funded quality health care system, we need to take some of your recommendations very seriously.
I want to ask you about a recommendation in your brief--education and training. Your recommendation is that the federal government provide long-term funding commitments to post-secondary education programs. You talked about how medical schools, nursing schools, a lot of health professional schools were cut back in the 1990s. I can recall that. I recall the argument in my own province of Nova Scotia. We weren't going to need as many doctors. We couldn't afford to have all these places, and the same with other health professionals. But I think it's clear now that we do need more funding for post-secondary education and in your case in the health professional field, specifically, nursing.
When you talk about long-term funding commitments, are you talking about a dedicated education transfer, handing money to the provinces to let them implement, since post-secondary education is primarily a provincial responsibility? Are you talking about direct federal investment perhaps in institutions and students?